RESOLUTIONS FOR THE NEW DECADE
(As Seen by Harvard Faculty)

The close of one decade and the beginning of another is not only a time for reflection on what has gone before but of anticipation of what lies ahead. It is a time for soul-searching as to the nature of our mission in our troubled world during the next decade. Our heritage being what it is, those of us within Churches of Christ-Christian Churches have a special responsibility to help build a better world and to be a blessing to the church at large. It might help us to put our “mission for the 80’s” in better perspective if we view it in terms of the world’s most important problems.

Harvard Magazine asked seven Harvard faculty people to identify the most serious problem the world faces and what resolutions we should make toward its solution. We will look at their answers in reference to the church’s task.

1. World hunger

Robert Coles, a psychiatrist in the medical school, sees food, or “its aching absence for millions and millions of human beings,” as the most serious problem in the world. He reminds us that while hunger has always been in the world, it is now possible in our scientific age to do something about it. We have banished diseases, broken through sound, seized control of the atom, and walked on the moon. We can, if we will, conquer hunger. The pope comes over and reminds us of our duty and Mother Teresa appears as an example of the kind of dedication needed, but we soon forget. It is ultimately a moral problem, he charges, for the soreness and the pain belong to others while the scandal belongs to us. The problem of hunger must be solved, he insists, and he is confident that we will move closer to that goal in the 80’s.

What is the church to do about world hunger during the next decade? Our first step should be to escape the sin of consumerism in both our private and congregational lives. In comparison to most of the world we are gluttons dying of consumeritus. We must make do on less as a moral obligation, and thus move closer to the consumption level of most of the world. We dare not wait until circumstances force us to consume less, for that is not a moral response.

A second step is to find ways and means of sharing our wealth with the world. Already there are reliable organizations with the know-how in getting what is needed to those who need it, such as Food for the Hungry and World Vision. They have representatives in the field ready to distribute what we give. We should inundate such agencies with money enough to feed and clothe every life they can reach. This will become a serious resolution when we put such duties before building projects and budgets packed with our self-interest.

2. Species extinction

E. O. Wilson is one of Harvard’s famed scientists, and he thinks the world of a thousand years from now will be able to forgive us all our sins except one, and that is the rape of the environment that they will inherit from us, especially in terms of the extinction of species. If there are now five to ten millions of species of plants and animals, the continuing rate of extinction is likely to eliminate 10,000 of these each year by 1990, which is one every hour. The destruction of what God has created will accelerate even more during the 90’s, if something isn’t done, so that within thirty years one million things now living will be gone from the earth forever. We destroy the species by destroying the environment in which they live. The professor is concerned for the harpy eagle and the Indian white rhinoceros, along with all of God’s creation that man’s carelessness is decimating.

The church’s response to this should be a ready ear. We should listen and become informed. Once we clearly perceive the immensity of this problem, there will be things we can all do. Now our task is to become ecologically conscious, which will be something new for many of us.

3. The uneven distribution of wealth.

Dean George Rupp of the divinity school sees the most important problem as “an enormously uneven distribution of wealth in the context of increasingly salient limitations in available resources.” This is to say that it doesn’t help all that much to slice the pie if the pie itself keeps getting smaller, and if the pie cannot be increased in size over a long period of time, it is all the more important to reslice the pie more evenly now and then.

Being a Christian himself, he too calls for reduced consumption, and a redistribution of the resources gained from that reduction. But he realizes proper redistribution calls for technical know-how that is very complex. Yet he warns that the complexity of the problem should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the well-to-do must reduce their consumption. He sees this in terms of the kingdom of God on earth, and affirmation that we are all members of one unified humanity.

4. Governmental bureaucracy

Robert Nozick, the only one who copyrighted his reply, is a professor of philosophy who sees all the serious problems in the 80’s made more serious by an increasing manipulation by government. The underlying problem of all our problems is that we have a system whereby the government gets larger and larger and rewards itself for what it does. The government uses our problems, which it helped to create, as a pretext for still more government. He sees the 80’s as really serious and the 90’s as very grim. The reason: big government

His conservative judgment is surprising coming out of Harvard, especially when he goes on to include among the possible woes of the next two decades the possibility of a Kennedy running for president.

Christian freedom means liberation from governmental manipulation as well as any other form of tyranny. In the 1980’s we are to be men and women who are free in Jesus, true libertarians who find their peace in spiritual values rather than Social Security. We are blessed in that we belong to a nation ruled by law rather than by men, and we are to use that law and the ballot box to defend our rights as individuals. We can still throw the rascals out, those who want to be masters over us rather than public servants. (to be continued) --- the Editor